Heroes of the Storm is a "Multiplayer Online Battle Arena" (MOBA) game made by Blizzard Entertainment, who are famous for producing game franchises like Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft. Blizzard's take on the MOBA in fact includes characters from all of those other franchises. The game play its self is similar in many ways to other currently popular MOBAs such as Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) and League of Legends (LOL).

Heroes of the Storm is played by two teams of five, these can be any combination of human or ai players, but is most commonly played with real people. The goal of the game is essentially to work together with your team to infiltrate the other team's defenses, destroy their defending towers and base, and to ultimately take out their main building called the "core". Each member of your team will pick a hero to play out of a large possible selection. The heroes available to players vary according to which ones they have earned or purchased. During the course of the game player's heroes gain experience for killing enemies, this experience (xp) is contributed to the teams total pool and once a threshold is met, the team levels up. At key team levels, the heroes select talents form skill trees specific to the character they are playing. A good team will be in constant communication over voice chat with headsets, making sure to pick both characters and talents that synergize well with those of their team mates.

And so the whole thing plays out like one big tug-of-war battle. Each team has ai controlled minions that constantly re-spawn, and players have to work together to buff these minions and each other to "push" towards their opponents base. At the same time, the team has to defend against the opponents team that is also trying to take out their base. It can be a lot of fun, especially when teaming up with friends or a consistent group of people who learn to work well together.

The free to play model in Heroes of the Storm is very well put together. It is one of the few free to play games that you actually can play for free and not be at a competitive disadvantage. You earn in game currency (gold) that you can use to buy heroes, and also a lot of cosmetic enhancements that change aesthetics without offering advantage. Every day there are quests players can complete for additional gold, and there are three characters that are free to play which rotate weekly. Added to this are a regular rotation of special bonus events where even more can be earned for free. Spending a little money ($4.99) on the "starter" bundle gives new players 3 characters, some other in game items and "stim pack" boosters that increase player experience and gold earned.